Glogster

Glogster=A Teacher's New Best Friend.

Today, I got to teach the class with my wonderful partner Caroline about Glogster! I really think everyone enjoyed learning about it and how you can use it in the classroom. I know everyone enjoyed playing around on their very own glog as well because it is addicting to say the least. Glogster is a FABULOUS web 2.0 tool that every teacher much know about! Basically, any type of assignment or activity that you would have your students do on a poster can be done better as a Glog, aka an online poster. Although the ways to integrate Glogster into the classroom are endless, one of the best ways is to have to your students create an "All About Me" glog so that they can introduce themselves to the class. This is perfect for the shy student so they do not have to stand up in class to introduce themselves and have to deal with being nervous or tense. This is truly one of the many, many ways that you can use glogster in the classroom.
**Visit our wiki page for more information on glogster!**

Also, take a look at the glog in the blog above that Caroline (my partner) and I created to show during our presentation!

Google Docs

         At the beginning of this TPTE class, Dr. Obannon showed us how to use and share assignments through google documents also known as "google docs" for short. Although I have a gmail account, I never knew about google docs and what you could do with it. It is basically a place for you to upload documents such as homework assignments, powerpoints, etc and then these documents can be shared with other people. The only way you can share the documents though is by putting their gmail email account into a shared tab and then the document is successfully sent/shared with your receiver. Therefore, for the sharing of documents to happen you must have a gmail account (which is so easy to get by the way if you don't have one!) The reason I am discussing google docs in my blog is because google docs was a very useful tool in another one of my classes, and if it weren't for this TPTE class and Dr. Obannon teaching us about google docs I would have never known how useful it actually is.
       In an Educational Psychology class I am, I recently had to do a group project with one other girl on a specific topic that we were going to have to teach to the class. For our group project, we decided that we wanted to do a powerpoint because we felt that was the best way to teach our topic to the class. As we were discussing our schedules, we realized that we were both extremely busy with our schedules and really did not have that much time to meet up. We put our heads together, and decided that we could share a powerpoint over google docs and just add our part of the project to the powerpoint whenever we wanted. This was the best idea ever and believe it or not we did not have to meet up once. Through google docs and email, we successfully made a powerpoint that we were able to present in class together. The only negative thing about sharing a powerpoint over google docs is that you can not make the powerpoint colorful and exciting like you can with a regular powerpoint.
         After we were done with the powerpoint on google docs though, my partner just transferred the powerpoint back over to a regular powerpoint and then added some color and a background to it. Although we couldn't add the color and excitement on google docs, this was still such a useful and reliable way to do our project together.  I was also excited that I got to transfer my knowledge of google docs from my TPTE class over to my Educational Psychology class. I really recommend using google docs if you do not already-It could be a great way for your students (most likely older students) to share homework assignments, presentations, spreadsheets or pretty much any assignments with you!

Want a tour of google docs to learn more? Click here!

WOrDLe!

Today in class I learned how to successfully use the web 2.0 tool Wordle! I absolutely LOVE it! It is so much fun to play around with and I can definitely see myself using this as a teacher. It is perfect to make things more interesting such as introducing everyone to class by putting their name in a wordle or putting class rules into a wordle. Those were two of my favorite examples that were presented to us during the presentation of wordle. Everything about wordle is fun and original and you can play around with it as much as you want! For example, originally, the wordle I had created below was yellow and pink writing against a white background, which was hard to read with the yellow writing. Dr. Obannon brought this to my attention, so I changed my wordle up and did a black background. I did not want to get rid of the yellow writing because yellow has always been one of my favorite colors. There is only one flaw that I have found in wordle as I have been exploring it more and that is that you can not go back and edit you work. If you accidently delete your wordle or press the back button on the wordle that you have open-it will not save the words for you-it will just go straight back to where you have to "paste in a bunch of text" and then you have to do it all over again-this was a little frustrating because if I would ever forget this and press back, my whole wordle was gone and all the words I had were erased. Other than that, I think wordle is fabulous and awesome to just look at. I will definitely utilize this one day in my own classroom! 

**A wordle about me!**

Journeying into the World of WebQuests

       Before this TPTE class, I can honestly say that I had never even heard the word "webquest", and if I did come across it ever, I surly had no idea what it was. When we received the assignment on webquests, I was a little nervous about it because it wasn't like anything that I had ever done before. I was happy that we got put in groups and got to collaborate over the worksheet on WeQquests. It was helpful that we all split up in our different roles (efficiency expert, affiliator, altitudinist, and technophile) and all got to fist explore the the web quests independently with our roles. It was also quite helpful that the worksheet had a place for "strengths" and "weaknesses" so that our ideas were organized and thought out.
      My role during the assignment was the Altitudinist and its function was to find out if the WebQuests we were evaluating contributed to critical and higher-level thinking. As I was looking throughout all the WebQuests, the one that I found to be "higher level" at its best as the Underground Railroad WebQuest. Some of the strengths as the altitudinist that I found in the Underground Railroad was it's need for students to share their feelings after the assignment and they were also supposed to journal their personal feelings and then talk about them later. This WebQuest made the students think deeper into their thoughts.
         One of the weakest WebQuests that I evaluated as the altitudinist was the Ice Cream WebQuest. The main point of the WebQuest was to going through the steps of how to make ice cream and for the students to make their own flavor of ice cream. I initially thought that this WebQuest fell under the standards for elementary science, but it said that it fit under the language arts standards, which made no sense to me. When I was evaluating this WebQuest I felt as though there was no purpose or goal to it. It seemed like a WebQuest simply just for fun.
         All in all, this worksheet really helped me better understand WebQuests and allowed me to explore them and see how beneficial they really are. I had never even thought to use these as a teacher before, but now that I know about them, I will utilize where ever I can in my classroom. I was excited that we got to go explore the webquests some more independently and find one that we thought fit into a standard of our age level. In since I am doing elementary (and special ed/deaf ed), I searched for a webquest that fit in the 3-5 grade range. I also looked under the Social Studies standards in Tennessee so that I could see what students were working on now to help me find a WebQuest that actually meant something and wasn't just random. I ended up finding a fabulous WebQuest named Native Americans at the Museum. In since I found that students in the 3rd-5th grades were working on Indians/Native Americans, I chose this WebQuest and I am glad I did because I really enjoyed evaluating it! It is instructional and collaborative but still still fun and imaginative for students.
       The main task of the WebQuest is to explore the culture of one of the main groups of Native Americans and what makes it fun is that the students are asked to become "researchers" and make up an exhibit for a history museum (obviously not real) to teach people about how the Native Americans lives. I just really enjoyed the task and how the WebQuest was laid out. There was enough room for individuality and imagination, which I liked, but there was also a lot of collaboration going on throughout it, which was another plus as well!
      I am happy that I now know how to search WebQuests and find which ones are the best. I think they are fabulous tools and I think I will definitely use them as a teacher. It is a fun and different way for students to explore subjects instead of just doing a worksheet or just reading about a certain topic. I hope to use WebQuests again soon someday because they were very educational, interesting and fun to learn about!

Grab a glimpse of the WebQuest I evaluated!

The Reliability and Usability of Funbrain

       Today, I accomplished another first-I evaluated the educational, children's website, funbrain.com, for its reliability and usability on the internet. I have never done something like this before, but I can honestly say that this was quite helpful because I was able to distinguish if this is truly a website that I would consider using in my classroom when I am teacher one day. I have to say that I got a little stressed looking at the evaluation sheet because I did not know if I would be able to find all the answers and get them correct. I know I did my best to dissect the website and find what I needed, but there were still some areas of the evaluation sheet that I was unsure of my answers. However, not only was this evaluation helpful for funbrain but I can definitely see some of the questions it asked rolling over into my decision for the reliability and usability of other children's websites as well.

       This site is wonderful because it is easy for children to navigate and find what they want, yet still educating them every step of the way. It is also great for teachers because it builds on what they teach their students everyday. Another plus is that funbrain includes a link to standards for teachers to show that the games and activities on the site are addressing the standards. I think this site is especially great for elementary school students because it is still quite young with its graphics and is very elementary just in just the nature of the website. Because of the fact that I am a hoping to be a Deaf ed./Special ed teacher, I find this site helpful in that it is interactive and fun yet it still explicitly and systematically states what it wants the child to do. I can definitely see a site like funbrain keeping a student who has disabilities or ADHD (for example) very engaged. My only concern with a student who has a disability is that the words and text all over the sight might get in the way of what they are trying to find when they are navigating the site. With the proper assistance though, I think that a student who has a disability could function well on this site. 

      Funbrain balances education, fun and interest very evenly, which I don't see as an easy task to accomplish. I commend the creators of this site because it seems quite difficult to do. I think it is safe to say that I would 100% use this site in my classroom as a general elementary education teacher and I would also use it as a special educator, while still providing assistance to the student who has the disability. Also, for deaf children, they still learn the same math, reading and literary skills that other students learn so I don't see why they would not be able to navigate and use a site like funbrain. It can definitely make learning for them more interesting and it gives them a different opportunity to practice what they have learned. Sometimes lessons can get quite boring, such as many math lessons, so a website like funbrain can make a math lesson that seems quite boring actually fun.

If you would ever like to use this the site in your classroom or just for fun the link is: http://www.funbrain.com/ (I really recommend it!)